Heyyy. In case you didn't know I turned 26 on December 1st. It was a birthday to remember especially as it was a lockdown birthday. Yupp, restaurants were close for dine ins and so were entertainment venues. To make it even 'better' , lockdown finished December 2nd, a day after my birthday. I mean, couldn't they just shift it a day earlier? Just kidding, I understand why it had to be done.
Anyways with nowhere to go I thought of what I could do indoors. At first I thought of doing nothing but that is just not me. Birthdays are a BIG deal to me and lockdown or no lockdown the show must go on! I decided to have a zoom games night. 23 other people showed up which was lovely to see. Doing it online afforded me the opportunity to invite people who ordinarily would not be able to come to my birthday events due to distance (I have international friends). I came up with a birthday flyer and an itinerary because I am extra. Check out the graphics below.
Shoutout to the lovely @crebulbs for designing this. I mean, if I wasn't excited about my birthday before, I sure was now.
Good old Canva to the rescue for this design. Can I just say that 8:30pm was my max leaving time. We overshot a bit but I am glad that people were understanding. I came in late as per being the birthday girl lol.I was pretty serious about people arriving on time and did say that unless you informed me prior, I won't be letting new people in after 10/15 minutes. Harsh but it does disrupt the flow of games if people enter midway. My friends were understanding and everyone was on time. Great stuff.
You can never go wrong with Kahoot, like never. Bingo was good, didn't realised that I'd picked a different version so that was a bit confusing. All in all it was a great night and the speeches were heartwarming. I'll list the winners of the respective games below.
'How well do you know me' -Karyna
'Kahoot Quiz' - Karyna
'Bingo' -Esther
'Scattergories' - LOOOL. Nobody, I was a bit ambitious with 10 rounds. But nevertheless it was a lot of fun.
Clearly, Karyna was on a roll ;)
I recorded the games night, because, yeah. I watched it the next day and it made me smile all over again. I really am grateful to all those who were able to log on!
As you can see I had loads of fun. Just because it was a lockdown birthday did not mean that I wouldn't dress up. Shout out to @glambyfunmi aka my sister who did my make-up. I'll share some photos in the gallery below. As per family birthday tradition we ordered a take-out. Can I just say that the Pizza hut Chrismas pizza is all shades of great! You gotta try it.
My sister Funmi and my friend Esther encouraged me to do a dinner for my birthday especially as lockdown was over. I was in two minds about it but I'm so glad I did it! As per social restrictions it was only a group of 6. I opted for somewhere local and I'm so glad I did. I did my 25th at Prezzo' Marble Arch and chose to do it again at Prezzo, but in Beckenham this time. Their Christmas menu is super affordable and the service was great. The decor was lovely too.
The small dinner really made me appreciate and value an intimate setting. If you know me you know that my birthdays generally have at least 10+ people in attendance at dinners. I have a lot of people I consider as friends and my birthdays are also a great way to catch up with them. However, due to being forced too only have 5 other people I couldn't have many friends around. There are definitely perks to an intimate dinner and lockdown or no lockdown I may do it again in the future. We will see though.
My friend Ephie came and she took the three awesome photos below. She's a freelance photographer so you should definitely check out her work here.
Bottom picture is me with my sister Funmi.
MUA: glambyfunmi
lashes: deeslashesbydayo
I had calamari for starters, a Christmas themed pizza and a birthday dessert. All in all a great night. I will share more pictures below of me with my lovely friends.
So there you have it., my birthday shenanigans. There is more to come as it is my birthday month however this is the only birthday post I will do.
Here's to a great year for me!